Kármán vortex street

In fluid dynamics, a Kármán vortex street (or a von Kármán vortex street) is a repeating pattern of swirling vortices, caused by a process known as vortex shedding, which is responsible for the unsteady separation of flow of a fluid around blunt bodies. It is named after the engineer and fluid dynamicist Theodore von Kármán, and is responsible for such phenomena as the 'singing' of suspended telephone or power lines and the vibration of a car antenna at certain speeds. In fluid dynamics, a Kármán vortex street (or a von Kármán vortex street) is a repeating pattern of swirling vortices, caused by a process known as vortex shedding, which is responsible for the unsteady separation of flow of a fluid around blunt bodies. It is named after the engineer and fluid dynamicist Theodore von Kármán, and is responsible for such phenomena as the 'singing' of suspended telephone or power lines and the vibration of a car antenna at certain speeds. A vortex street will only form at a certain range of flow velocities, specified by a range of Reynolds numbers (Re), typically above a limiting Re value of about 90. The (global) Reynolds number for a flow is a measure of the ratio of inertial to viscous forces in the flow of a fluid around a body or in a channel, and may be defined as a nondimensional parameter of the global speed of the whole fluid flow: